Artists in Healthcare are delighted and grateful for the Zita and Mark Bernstein Family Foundation’s gift to fund George Bajer-Koulack’s music at Misericordia Health Centre. George is able to play inside, fully PPE trained, for residents, making a profound difference in their quality of life with his joyful, engaging presence. Our sincere thanks for this most meaningful gift.
Mar 23
Support for live music
Feb 05
9 Health Benefits of Music
“Music can improve mood, decrease pain and anxiety, and facilitate opportunities for emotional expression. Research suggests that music can benefit our physical and mental health in numerous ways. Music therapy is used by our hospice and palliative care board-certified music therapist to enhance conventional treatment for a variety of illnesses and disease processes – from anxiety, depression and stress, to the management of pain and enhancement of functioning after degenerative neurologic disorders.”
“Max Lerman, Hospice and Palliative Care Music Therapist from Spiritual Care and Music Therapy at NorthShore, highlights some of the benefits music has on health and well-being:
It’s heart healthy. Research has shown that blood flows more easily when music is played. It can also reduce heart rate, lower blood pressure, decrease cortisol (stress hormone) levels and increase serotonin and endorphin levels in the blood.”
Read more by clicking the link!
Jan 26
Papa Mambo Video for AIHM and MB Chamber Orchestra
Please find the most recent link to the Artists in Healthcare/MB Chamber Orchestra virtual music program, and share widely with your patients and staffs!
We will continue to post new recordings every week until we can resume outside, and eventually inside music to your hospitals and long-term care.
Jan 20
Why Being Creative is Good for You
BBC culture
“What is the key to creativity, and how does it help our mental health? Beverley D’Silva speaks to Artist’s Way author Julia Cameron and others about ‘flow’, fear and curiosity.
Creativity, according to Maya Angelou, is a bottomless pit: “The more you use it, the more you have,” said the novelist. “Creativity is intelligence having fun,” is a phrase often attributed to Einstein. While advertising supremo David Ogilvy came at it from a business perspective: “If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative”. We know creativity is alive in all fields of life, from medicine to business and agriculture. But the word – which derives from the Latin creare, to make – is most often associated with the arts and culture, and is believed to have first appeared in the 14th-Century literary work, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.”
Leonardo Da Vinci Painting The Mona Lisa By Cesare Maccari
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210105-why-being-creative-is-good-for-you
Read more by clicking the link above.
Jan 13
18th Century Music and Medicine
Medicine musica: the eighteenth-century rationalization of music and medicine
Daisy Fancourt
London, United Kingdom
Instruments de musique, 1770 Anne Vallayer-Coster Musée du Louvre, Paris
“Legends of music’s healing powers on both the mind and the body are estimated to go as far back as Paleolithic times, when music was believed to be a magic that could drive away the angry spirits that caused illness.
It wasn’t until the beginnings of learned medicine in the Greek-Roman, Arabic, Indian, and Chinese traditions that theories of music’s medicinal qualities began to be recorded. But from here on, they became a popular topic for discussion. In the Greek tradition alone, the Mycenean god Pajawo of 2000 BC used holy song to cure disease, and Apollo combined roles as healer and musician.
And even amongst mere mortals, The Odyssey told of the bleeding of Odysseus’s wounds from a wild boar only being stopped with a musical incantation; and the poet Pratinas in the 6th century BC recorded a plague in Sparta being quelled by the music of the composer Thaletas.”
Read more at the link above!
Jan 06
Music as Therapy in the Ottoman Empire
Painting by Nil Sari depicting the treatment of an insane patient by musical therapy.
Ottoman Music Therapy
“Music has been used as a mean of therapy through the centuries to counter all kinds of disorders by various peoples. Physicians and musicians in the Ottoman civilization were aware of the music therapy in continuation of previous Muslim similar practices. There are numerous manuscripts and pamphlets on the influence of sound on man and the effect of music in healing, both in works on medicine and music. Ideas of Al-Farabi, Al-Razi and Ibn Sina on music were followed by several Ottoman physicians.”
by Nil Sari
from https://muslimheritage.com/ottoman-music-therapy/
Click on the link to read more!
Jan 05
Art and Recovery at CAMH
While art in hospitals is believed to provide comfort and promote recovery, it’s still a donor-driven effort.
Photo of Rebecca Baird’s art installation at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Please refer to Artists in Healthcare’s annual report to read about our Art in Hospital Donation program which has recieved $359,000 of donated art given to Manitoba hospitals over the last two years.
Dec 22
Manitoba Chamber Orchestra Videos
Please find a link to our newest project, another wonderful collaboration with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. Thanks to grants from Dave Johnston of the Johnston Group and The Winnipeg Foundation, musicians are recording live/virtually from their homes to create a concert series free to all patients and staffs.
Currently posted are three videos of holiday music with more coming today. More varied programs will be added in the coming weeks so please let people know to keep checking back for new content. We hope to be able to continue adding new music throughout lockdowns and restrictions, until our musicians can return inside to play when it is safe to do so.
If you are a Volunteer Services Manager, or hospital communications staff, please share the link with all program administrators in your hospital so that their staff can be informed and share with patients. Anyone can access this using their iphone or tablet.
If you can connect to a large flat screen in your atrium or front entrance, please do so! It is the best time of year for music to bring us together.
The link is also going to our musicians to share directly with any units/staff that they have email access to.
With thanks for your help getting this ‘out’ to as many units as possible, so staff are aware and can share widely.
Artists in Healthcare and the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra wish you all the very best of the season!
Dec 08
Annual Report, April 2019 – March 2020
Click on the image to see the report:
AIHM Annual General Report for 2019 – 2020
May 06
Telus Future Friendly Foundation
Artists in Healthcare are delighted that the Telus Future Friendly Foundation awarded $10,000 to fund a very successful songwriting program at the Manitoba Adolescent Youth Treatment Centre.
Songwriting has provided incredible outcomes with youth, allowing them to express feelings and have meaningful and healing conversations safely.
Here are some comments from young songwriters:
“Thank you so much for coming here, this has been really seriously helping me.”
“I’m going to stop getting fake nails so I can learn how to play the guitar.”
“I love this, I’m going to keep writing after I’m out of here.”
“Oh, so you can practice expressing yourself, and you’ll get better at it…”
“I’ve always wanted to write a song, this is awesome.”
“We’ve been really impressed with the engagement we’ve been seeing. Everyone has been really interested and they get excited for every class.” -MATC staff
There are amazing mental health benefits from telling and sharing your story … thank you Telus!
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